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zaterdag 11 december 2010

home made vanilla extract - in the making!

It was in the plans for a long time already. Last year I received some home made vanilla extract from my friend Debbie. I haven't used anything else since. But now there's only a few drops left.
So...

Yesterday I finally got out my vanilla beans, bought some vodka, split the beans, scraped out some of the seeds (got lovely smelling hands!), put it all in the bottle and in about 8 weeks, with a weekly shake and a hiding in a dark closet my homemade vanilla extract will be ready. Dark, syruppy, vanilla-y, pure, fragant gorgeous vanilla extract.

How to do it? Uhm...get some vodka, get some vanilla beans, split, mix, and wait.:-)
And read more here.

Do read all the comments as well for tips on what other alcohol you could use instead of vodka.
Since I had lots of vanilla, a whole bottle of vodka and no jar or other, smaller bottle available I decided just to infuse the whole bottle and I used about 10 vanilla pods for that. It also ment I did not have to sterilize my jar :-).
There'll be no shortage of vanilla extract in this house for a while!!

PS. Vanilla extract works wonders for smelly fridges, I learned last week after leaving half an onion in uncovered (blegh!). The usual trick (leaving some bicarb of soda in the fridge to absorb the odour) did not work so I searched online and found this tip: clean the fridge with hot water with 3 tablespoons of bicarb, and a splash of vanilla. It worked like a charm!

1 opmerking:

When my vanilla ran a bit dry I just added more vodka and a few more pods to the bottle. A few weeks in the cupboard and all was well again.

I am going to add a vanilla pod to my bottle of caramel vodka. Just for the flavour boost. Think it will really round out the aroma and flavour and turn something yummy but too sweet, into something luscious.

Over mij

Eind 2008:Omdat het leven er ZO anders uitgaat zien, nu ik mijn lief ga volgen die een baan in Hongkong heeft gekregen...
Okt 2011: Jaap is gevraagd voor een baan bij het zusterbedrijf in Vancouver. We gaan het traject inzetten maar blijven voorlopig gewoon in HongKong...
Wordt vervolgd...!
Juli 2012, het vervolg.
Na maanden van heen en weer vliegen tussen HongKong en Vancouver, BC, zijn we verhuisd naar Canada en staan we weer voor een nieuw begin!
-----------------------------
End of 2008: Because life is going to be very different, now that I'll follow the man of my life to HongKong where he accepted a new job.
Oct. 2011: more changes to come: Jaap is invited to come to the sistercompany in Vancouver. Whilst still in HongKong we're looking at all possibilities!
To be continued......
July 2012, the continuation.
After months of commuting between HongKong and Vancouver we finally moved to Canada and are at the beginning of new beginnings!
The " Jaap& Mickey" blog is in Dutch - but feel free to browse and enjoy part of our HongKong/Vancouver/international life in pictures.